1960s Marvel cartoon theme songs

November 28, 2009 3:32 PM

The best thing about those Marvel Comics cartoons from the 1960s? The theme music.
posted by the_bone (26 comments total)

Spiderman is the only theme of the linked ones that I remember at all. I think it stayed on the air for a very long time. The others weren't played much, at least in my area.

An alternate take: Moxy Früvous does Spider-Man.
posted by Malor at 4:39 PM on November 28, 2009

Related/Previously: Joker Is Wild - Sun Ra and The Blues Project Do Batman and Robin (WFMU Beware of the Blog)
posted by filthy light thief at 5:12 PM on November 28, 2009

Spider-man theme is a straight up classic. That my 3 year old has learnt it makes me a very proud dad. Of course, she identifies other superheroes (and Judge Dredd) as Spider-man, so we have a way to go yet on character identification.

There was one bit of incidental music they'd play in the 80s Hulk cartoon, usually when everything was going to crap, that was awesome.
posted by Artw at 5:15 PM on November 28, 2009

That Spiderman theme really takes me back to being a kid watching cartoons over a bowl of cereal in the morning, as I suspect it does for many other people. Thanks for this!
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:23 PM on November 28, 2009

Awesome, thank you! Of course I remember the Spiderman theme, the Capt. America one ain't bad either.
posted by marxchivist at 5:25 PM on November 28, 2009

The best thing about Spiderman was that it was In Color (oh for the days of the blink tag).
posted by djfiander at 5:32 PM on November 28, 2009

The Thor one sounds like it could be the Asgard State University fight song.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:00 PM on November 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

WFMU post on the Spider-Man music.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:15 PM on November 28, 2009 [3 favorites]

Spider-Man doesn't look right
He looks like cheap-ass
Spidey, wearin' the Nike shoes (NSFW audio)
posted by lumensimus at 6:35 PM on November 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

As the author points out, it's awesome that Thor appeared on Thursday. I'm also amused by the choice of Sub-Mariner for Friday. Was someone in the decision-making process Catholic?
posted by lore at 6:36 PM on November 28, 2009

The Ramones made an animated and a (mostly) live-action video of the Spiderman theme.
posted by jeffen at 7:06 PM on November 28, 2009

The Hulk one is hilarious. The "ever-lovin' " Hulk?
posted by Solon and Thanks at 7:10 PM on November 28, 2009

'Course the best version of the Spiderman theme is here. (Hometown boys, so I may be biased.)
posted by Hardcore Poser at 7:31 PM on November 28, 2009

Wrong comic publisher, but I always thought that Wonder Woman was super funky.
posted by deliquescent at 7:37 PM on November 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

@lumensimus I was at that show. Spider-Man did indeed look cheap-ass.
posted by droob at 8:00 PM on November 28, 2009

While the Ramones are unbeatably cool, those home-town boys (mine too) created an amazing tribute to those weekday lunch hour repeats of the show (before it was replaced by The Mighty Hercules
posted by jeffen at 9:22 PM on November 28, 2009

I'm not sure that any Spider-Man, cheap-ass or not, really deserves what happened to that Spider-Man.
posted by Artw at 9:41 PM on November 28, 2009

Deliquescent, if you like the Wonder Woman theme song, try this.
posted by The Tensor at 11:53 PM on November 28, 2009

Without the Spider-Man theme, there would be no Spider-Pig.
posted by bonefish at 2:51 AM on November 29, 2009

The Iron Man theme was pretty cool.

Even cooler is the fact that a) it was on the recent movie soundtrack as the original (attributed to "Jack Urbont"), as well as b) used as the basis of a swing version. It was a nice touch, I felt, when I cackled out loud in the theatre when I heard it.
posted by mephron at 6:35 AM on November 29, 2009

It's funny, back in Europe we didn't really get anything else apart from the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. Don't remember them looking as crappy though - they were either a newer version or I was too young to care :)
posted by wet-raspberry at 8:44 AM on November 29, 2009

"Asgard State University"

You do realize in the work of ten seconds you just wrote the next Gaiman novel, right?
posted by majick at 8:49 AM on November 29, 2009

Another vote for the Spider-Man theme. It swings baby, it swings!!
posted by Skygazer at 9:54 AM on November 29, 2009

So that's the lyrics to the Hulk song. I could never figure them out. Sometimes I'd remember the cartoon just at bedtime and it would literally keep me awake.

Unglamo-rays?

You bastards! Evil BASTARDS! What the fuck kind of word is that? I was just a KID!!!

Isn't nostalgia wonderful?
posted by Splunge at 3:08 PM on November 29, 2009

And they rhyme it with gamma-rays. Lazy sods.
posted by Artw at 3:29 PM on November 29, 2009

Namor...had....music?
I can die happy.
posted by vrakatar at 10:48 PM on November 29, 2009 [1 favorite]